ELECTRIC LOO

(In collaboration with RoTo Architects)

The project is a shipping container conversion to provide male and female bathroom units to a camp in the Angeles National Forest. Each shipping container unit contains three showers, three toilets, and two sinks.

The camp was confronted with new regulations dictating that no new permanent structure could be built. As a result, we used shipping containers to provide a platform of “temporary-ness” that also allowed for the bathrooms to be fabricated off-site, then delivered and installed in a one day period.

The project tries to address disparate internal and external realities: Outwardly the shipping container bathrooms are cooperative with context and landscape, respectfully maintaining small footprints and camouflaged garb. Inwardly they are defiant world-makers, creating their own exuberance through the opportunistic use of materials and detail: Epoxy resin cup sinks and gooseneck faucets are inset into a folded steel countertop, heavy cloth curtains provide material texture and eliminate spatial interruptions, and strategically placed windows allow outward (but not inward) views that capture and frame the landscape, like a painting, appropriating it as an interior moment.